There was an interesting thread over at Benjamin Rosenbaum’s blog recently, about ... well, about slipstream and genre. But no, really, there were things that were interesting. Honestly. Well, I thought there was interesting stuff.
One of the things I thought was interesting was Mr. Rosenbaum’s matrix of naturalism/fantasy against realism/irrealism. He’s not using the terms realism and naturalism the way I do, which makes it difficult for me to understand, but what I think he’s saying is that a writer can deal with a fantastic world as if it were everyday, and a writer can deal with the everyday world as if it were a fantasy. Of course, it’s more complicated than that. But I think the distinction is a useful one, or can be, and anyway it made me think of Walter Mosley’s The Man in My Basement.
Now, this is a book where nothing happens that is impossible. Nothing violates the laws of physics, no technology is posited that doesn’t exist, nobody has superpowers, and the setting is naturalistic to the extreme, making the old Sag Harbor house and its neighborhood documentary-real. On the other hand, the main plot point is so incredibly unlikely that the whole thing seems ... fantastic. Of course, unlikely things happen all the time; it’s a big world. But, then, the world, itself, seems fantastic at times.
Mine Gracious Host once defined science fiction as what’s in that stack of books I’m pointing at when I say “those books are science fiction”. And, you know, when we looked at the books, whaddyaknow, he was right. It’s still the best definition I’ve heard. That was fifteen years ago, or so, and whenever YHB changes residence, there’s the process of reshelving books out of the boxes, and deciding whether a book goes on the specfic shelf or not. We’re still shifting books, here at the new pad, and there are still books I’m not sure of: I should probably move Never Let Me Go with the other books by Kazuo Ishiguro, and our Tom Robbins books could go either in lit or specfic (our litchratchoor shelf is surprisingly big).
Digression: Should we shelve 1066 and all that with non-fiction? It’s not, you know, true or anything like that, but it is a reference book, at least in some sense. It should be near Potter on Gamesmanship. Where do Gentle Readers shelve America: The Book? We don’t have a humor section, or even a humour section, nor do we have enough books to make one, at least without pulling all the books of humorous essays out from the essay section, which would make the essay section pretty thin indeed. End Digression.
The point, if I have to have one, is that Basement somehow seems like a work of speculative ficton, without my being able to defend its inclusion, either on a content-based scheme or a style-based scheme nor yet on a marketing-based scheme. In fact, nothing in it allows it to be anything but a contemporary literary novel, both realistic and naturalistic. Except it isn’t, somehow.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.